Places We've Never Been, page 6
We were pumped full of water in between each location and by the time we were done with our five-hour tour and riding in the cramped van back to camp, I was ready to find a tumble weed on the side of the road to relieve myself behind.
“What’s wrong?” Paisley asked, pointing at my knees that were bouncing all around. She’d sat next to me the whole day.
“I have to pee,” I said.
“Me too! I think I drank three bottles of water because the guide kept scaring me so much about heatstroke.”
“Wait, did you ever find out yesterday at the visitors center why this place is called Death Valley?”
“The pioneers named it,” the guide said, obviously a complete eavesdropper. “Someone in their party died traveling through here.”
“Of heatstroke?” Paisley asked. “Like we almost died of today?”
“You were nowhere near dying.”
“Oh, interesting…” Paisley rolled her eyes at me and shook the empty water bottle she held. “I’m going to add this info to my report. Because I like to overachieve.”
We pulled up to our campsite and I muscled my way out of the car and took off running.
“Norah!” Mom yelled. “The keys.”
I turned and held out my hands. She tossed them to me and I caught them and ran the rest of the way to the RV.
When I came out, feeling much better, the three guys were cranking down the awnings, disconnecting the water and power and gathering the last of the trash.
“Did you almost have another peeing-your-pants incident, Nor?” Ezra said.
Skyler shot Ezra a dark look that surprised me.
Ezra obviously saw it, too, because he said, “What? That’s how brothers work. I will never let her live this down.”
“Next time I’ll pee in your bed,” I said.
“Norah,” Mom scolded. “Not even a little funny.” After her slow start, Mom had seemed fine the rest of the day.
“I thought it was at least a little funny,” I said.
“Yeah, Mom,” Ezra agreed. “It was Norah funny.”
“You two.” Mom sighed. “Finish packing up if you want to see this ghost town.”
CHAPTER 7
All the talk of ghosts on the way over had me jumpy as we walked through the worn-down buildings in a town that had sprung to life in the gold rush and had probably just as quickly been abandoned. Many were dilapidated at this point but some had obviously been built better than others because they’d at least somewhat withstood the elements.
I had gotten separated from our group and was circling a house made of glass bottles and adobe, amazed it was still standing. “What do you like about this building, Norah?” I asked myself, imitating an interviewer. I sighed. That wasn’t an unexpected question or a hard one.
Harder question…
“How could you incorporate this building into a video game?” My brain immediately imagined the adobe between the bottles dissolving and the bottles coming loose, causing the characters in the game to roll around the screen, off balance. How would that level be cleared? Fill the bottles with the ghosts haunting this town? No, that was too out there. I needed a more commercial idea. Rebuild the house? Crush all the bottles?
I ran my hand along the wall, which looked like hundreds of multicolored circles, formed from the bottom of the bottles. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to destroy you.” Stop talking to yourself, Norah. Actually, I was talking to a building. That seemed worse.
I started to leave when I heard a scuffing noise around the nearest corner. “Ezra?”
Nobody responded, just more scraping, like footsteps dragging across dry dirt.
“Hello?” I slowly rounded the corner. My eyes shot to the ground, thinking it was a mouse or rabbit or something, but I saw nothing. My heart sped up and I crept toward the next corner.
“No,” Ezra’s voice rang out. I peered around the building, ready to jump out and scare him but he was on the phone, so I started to back away when I heard him say, “Norah doesn’t know.”
I paused in my retreat.
“No, I swear,” he said. “I told you I wouldn’t so I won’t.”
Footsteps sounded behind me and I whirled around. Skyler was there, his mouth open as if about to speak. I immediately grabbed his arm, pulled him close, and covered his mouth. Then I strained to hear the rest of Ezra’s one-sided conversation.
“When, though?” he was saying. “I know, it’s just hard. I better go before…” He walked in the opposite direction, taking the end of the sentence with him.
That’s when I became aware of a very still Skyler, one of his biceps in my grip, his mouth still beneath my other hand. My back was against the wall and his chest was millimeters from mine. I met his confused eyes but before I could pull my hand away, he licked it.
“Ew!” I gasped and wiped my hand on the front of his shirt.
“There was probably a better way to shut me up,” he said.
“But not a faster way.”
He tilted his head as if he disagreed but I just shoved him away from me and moved to leave when he asked, “What was that about, anyway?” He nodded toward where Ezra had once stood.
“He’s…” I wasn’t sure what Ezra was. My brother and I had always been able to talk to each other. I never expected to hear that he was purposefully keeping something from me. That was new. Was this trip like a litmus test for my relationships? Soon I was going to see that Willow was my only true friend. Maybe I only needed one.
“Something about my mom?” I said to Skyler. That was my best and only guess. And I sensed it was right too. Was she sad? Mad? Was something happening with my parents? Or maybe it was about something else entirely. But what?
“What about your mom?” Skyler asked.
Once upon a time, I would’ve told him exactly what I thought was going on. All my worries and insecurities. But we were well past that. “Did you need something?”
He must’ve realized I wasn’t going to answer his question because he said, “Have you seen Paisley? Our moms want pictures with the ghost by the bike.”
“I haven’t seen her.” We walked across the hard-packed barren landscape. It looked exactly like I imagined a ghost town would look—dry brush not more than ankle high, yellow dirt, trees that seemed half dead but had obviously been there for decades.
Our moms were standing by a white plaster sculpture that had been formed into what looked like a robe draped over an invisible shape. It stood, ready to mount an actual bike. It was odd and definitely picture worthy.
Paisley was already there.
Austin and Ezra reached it at the same time I did. I gave Ezra a dirty look.
“What?” he said, tugging on the end of my hair.
He wouldn’t tell me now. Not with everyone around. Not after he promised whoever was on the phone—Dad?—that he wouldn’t. But maybe if I confronted him in private I could get answers. “Nothing,” I said.
“There are twelve of these ghosts just outside of town meant to represent the Last Supper scene. So save some of your good poses for that,” Austin said to the group.
“I only have three pose-with-a-ghost looks,” I said.
He smiled.
I let the guys fill in around the bike first, then took my place on the opposite side of the group from Skyler, next to Paisley. After our moms took pictures, I made them take a few together and then we took some as separate families. All in all, we took entirely too many pictures with a ghost by a bike. I hadn’t saved any of my faux scared faces for a whole other set of ghosts.
Mom gave a loud whistle and pointed toward the RVs. “Let’s go, let’s go. It’s getting late and we have a five-hour drive ahead of us.” She patted Ezra’s arm and held out her hand, palm up. “Keys.”
“What?” Ezra exclaimed.
“I should drive this leg.”
“Why? I’m young, Mom. I’m way more likely to stay awake behind the wheel than you are.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Mom had never had problems staying awake driving.
“Funny,” Mom said, her hand still out. Did she know that he knew whatever it was that I didn’t know?
“It wasn’t a joke,” he said with his cheeky smile.
“Please, Miranda,” Paisley chimed in. “Norah was going to give me some drawing tips.”
Mom looked at Olivia, who shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “But if you get sleepy, call me and we’ll switch places.”
“You too,” he said. “If you get tired, we can always pull over for the night.”
She hugged me and Ezra; then she and Olivia headed to the other vehicle.
“I can go with you guys,” Skyler said, catching up to his mom. “In case you need a spare driver.”
“Nice try,” Olivia said. “You can’t drive the rental.” Then she said something under her breath to him. Probably something like Yes, you have to keep dealing with Norah even though you don’t want to.
Whatever she said, he gave her a half smile, then sauntered over to our RV. Paisley rushed up the steps in front of him.
I stepped forward at the same time as Skyler and then we both stopped, gesturing for the other person to go. Then we both stepped forward again.
“Go ahead,” I said.
He gave a short nod and climbed up, then shut the door behind him. I grunted, thinking he was just being thoughtless, but when I reached up to open the door, it was locked. My breath caught in my chest. We used to do this to each other all the time. Was this his call for a truce? Or maybe it was at his mom’s suggestion.
I pounded on the door. “Skyler, don’t be a punk!”
The latch clicked and the door swung open. Paisley stood there, a confused expression on her face.
I walked in and smacked Skyler on the shoulder as I passed him by, my call for a truce. He chuckled.
The RV rumbled to life and Paisley took her place, cross-legged on the bed with the old notebook. I joined her and decided to sketch the sand dunes I’d seen earlier before they slipped from my memory. But what I ended up sketching was multicolored glass bottles scattered all over the page, their support system dissolved.
“What are all these pics on the bottom corner of the pages?” Paisley asked just as I settled into my zone.
“Which ones?” I asked.
She turned the notebook toward me and pointed.
“Oh,” I said. “Animation.”
“Bring it here,” Skyler said, and she did.
He closed the book. “Watch right here,” he told Paisley. She nodded; then he used his thumb to fan through the pages.
“Oh wow, cool,” she said. “Did you draw these?”
“Norah did.”
She swiped the book from Skyler and rejoined me on the bed. “Is this what you’re going to show the school person?”
I smiled. “Not that one, but yes, I brought another book. It’s more gaming inspired.”
“My dad thinks video games are childish.”
I was sad to hear he hadn’t changed. “Yes, your dad was always good at discouraging a lot of things.”
Skyler avoided my eyes with that statement.
Paisley sat up straight. “What should I tell him so he’ll let me play?”
“What?”
“How do you convince haters that video games aren’t bad?”
An unexpected question. One I hadn’t prepared for. I had prepped myself to talk to video game lovers. I hadn’t thought to prepare for that kind of question. Would I be asked that? “I…They’re…relaxing. They can relax people and help with stress.” I spit out the same argument three times in a row.
She rolled her eyes. “My dad doesn’t care about helping us relax.”
“Probably true. But they’re way more than that. They’re creative outlets. In Minecraft, you can build and control your own world. You’re right,” I said, seeing her face. “Creativity is not high on his list either. He would love a game like Fortnite. A survival game that requires strategy and fast thinking. What parent doesn’t love that? Or maybe he’d be into Zelda. It’s high fantasy but there is also puzzle solving and saving a princess. He probably even played it when he was young.”
“My dad wasn’t born an adult?” Paisley said with a smirk.
“We’ve never proven otherwise.” I pulled out my flash cards and added her question. I needed to think of a less rambling answer. One that didn’t sound like me geeking out over video games with a friend. I started flipping through the cards for at least the tenth time that day to review.
“Is that why you want to animate video games?” Skyler asked, his voice thoughtful, curious. “Creativity, strategy, and puzzle solving?”
“Animating and playing are two different things,” I said. It was a snarky response. One that didn’t answer his question, but I didn’t want to answer his question. Not when he hadn’t answered any of mine. Maybe I wasn’t ready for a truce after all.
“Right,” he said, short, curt, cold. He pulled out his phone, probably ready to text his grievances to whoever he had waiting at home, just like I had been doing with Willow.
“Is there a TV in here?” Paisley asked. “Mom wouldn’t let me bring my iPad on this trip.”
“There is. Do you want to watch it? We don’t have streaming or anything, but we do have some DVDs over there in that drawer.”
She walked over to the drawer and pulled it open. She flipped through the movies and eventually picked one out, then spun in a full circle. “What now?” she asked.
I stood and slid back the cabinets on the wall across from the couch, revealing the television. “The player is here. The remote is here.”
“Thanks, Norah.”
“Of course.”
I wandered up front and leaned against the half wall between the driver’s seat and the bench behind it. “I just started a movie if you want to watch,” I said to Austin.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Right.” The road was dark in front of us, really dark. The headlights barely cutting through the blackness. It made it feel like we were in the middle of nowhere. Which we pretty much were. “How far until Vegas?” I asked.
“A couple hours,” Ezra said.
“Will we be able to see the lights from the freeway?” We weren’t stopping in Vegas, but I wanted to at least get a glimpse.
“Have you never been to Vegas?” Austin asked.
“Have you?” I returned.
“When we used to live in Fresno, we did a weekend trip.”
I didn’t remember them going to Vegas, but I was sure Skyler must’ve said something at the time.
“Our families actually did things independent of each other?” Ezra asked in fake shock.
I took a pair of sunglasses that were clipped to the visor and put them on. I pushed on the ends behind my ears several times, making them go up and down. Neither of them laughed.
“Whose are these?” I asked.
“Mine,” Austin said.
“You wear big sunglasses.”
“Let me try them on.” Ezra reached out and waved his arm in my direction.
I batted his hand away and put the sunglasses back. “No, you’ll crash us.”
“Why do you keep insisting I’m going to crash?”
“I’m not letting you wear sunglasses at night.”
“Did you mean to quote a song?”
“That’s not a song.”
“Austin, I wear my sunglasses at night. Is that a song lyric?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You two are like an old married couple,” I said, even more annoyed. I’d said they’d hung out as much as me and Skyler had when the Huttons lived in Fresno, but they really hadn’t. Skyler and I had been the superior friendship. Austin and Ezra were default friends. Friends because our families got together a lot and they were the same age. But now they only served as proof of how far apart Skyler and I had drifted. And with Austin here in our RV, when was I ever going to be able to talk to Ezra alone and find out what he was keeping from me?
CHAPTER 8
Zion National Park in southern Utah felt just as hot as Death Valley had. But it was gorgeous. Where Death Valley had seemed mostly flat and dry, Zion’s rocks rose like skyscrapers striped red and orange.
“Water time!” Ezra shouted, climbing off the bus that had taken us to the entry point along the river. A girl by a trailer was handing out blue and yellow tubes, and we got in line behind another group of tourists to collect ours.
“Is my life jacket tight enough?” Paisley tugged on the straps.
“You’re good,” Skyler said. “Don’t be scared.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not scared, stupid. The guide said this was like a lazy river. Why would I be scared of that?”
“Stupid? You calling me stupid?” He took her in a headlock and she screamed and smacked his back. He let her go with a laugh.
“You put sunblock on, right?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Lots.”
“You too, Ezra?”
“Yes, Mommy,” Ezra said, like he always did when he felt he was being treated like a child.
“Hey,” she said. “When I don’t ask, you get fried. What about you, Austin, Skyler, Paisley?”
I laughed. “She’s your mom, too, now,” I said.
Olivia hadn’t joined us for the tubing. She wanted to do some shopping and said she would meet up with us for lunch after.
